[Ace] One Night 4 *Horror Game* [Demo 1.1!]

Overview

One Night 4 is the latest addition to Dark Gaia's infamous horror game series, under development in the RPG Maker VX Ace engine. It has the distinction of being the very first horror/adventure game created with the engine. One Night 4 is not a continuation of the previous One Night games; its story is completely unrelated (except for a few small references) and it is aimed at new players and veterans alike.
One Night 4 features new, exploration oriented gameplay, two intertwining worlds and a brand new focus on psychological horror in the vein of classics like the Silent Hill series.

Story Outline

"Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?" - John Lennon

In One Night 4, you play as Gordon West, an ex secondary school teacher turned failing writer. When a strange, nondescript package arrives on Gordon's doorstep containing an empty golden locket and a slip of paper reading "Come to me", he begins experiencing recurring nightmares about a series of terrible places that seem just a little too real. As you survive each of Gordon's dreams and uncover the significance of each surreal location and its connection to Gordon's subconscious, you'll learn a terrible, forgotten secret and, though this, discover the nature of this mysterious fate.

Features

- A brand new One Night horror adventure featuring an all new story and characters, with three endings.
- Six eerie locations, filled with scares, puzzles and clues to the mystery of Gordon's past.
- New, exploration based gameplay. 90% of the objects in One Night 4 can be examined, and you must carefully explore each place to fully unravel the mystery.
- Lurking, psychological horror in the style of Silent Hill 2. One Night 4 isn't about gore or monsters; your own mind is now your worst enemy.
- Two worlds: the dream world and the real world (Gordon's apartment) that connect subtly and eventually start to blur together.

Screenshots









Frequently Asked Questions

Spoiler for "Show":

Or Newly Anticipated Questions, but whatever. Here you can find some interesting information about One Night 4 that may be just what you are looking for.

You're finally doing One Night 4! But I thought you said that Full Circle was the final game. What gives?

I didn't intend to make another One Night game after Full Circle, which was meant to replace another potential sequel and close the trilogy off. However, I kept getting requests for it, and I decided to see how I would fare making a horror game in VX Ace. I haven't seen anyone attempt it so far. Up to this point, it's actually been easier to make than the previous One Night games, thanks to Ace's more advanced functions.

Does this follow on from the previous One Night games? Will I have to play them to understand the story?

One Night 4 is not a continuation of the previous games. Those games formed a coherent trilogy, and Full Circle effectively resolved that story. I'd rather not try to expand a completed story. Instead, this game features an all new, unrelated story (sans small continuity references that alude to the previous games) that can be understood without any knowledge of the previous games.
Consider it like the newly released Silent Hill Downpour; it's very much a Silent Hill game, but it's aimed mainly at new players and its story is not connected to the previous Silent Hill games.

How is the gameplay of One Night 4 different to previous games?

One Night 4 is much more exploration oriented than previous games, and combat has been completely removed. Enemy encounters will only occur during occasional scripted moments, and these will be chase scenes reminiscent of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. There is only one enemy in the game, and his existence is largely tied to the game's storyline.

In addition, the sparkles that marked items and things of interest in the previous games are gone. 90% of all objects in One Night 4 can be examined, so you will have to carefully explore each location to find files and items. In terms of pacing and atmosphere, One Night 4 aims to recapture something similar to One Night 2: The Beyond.

You said this game takes place in Gordon's dreams. How does this work?

One Night 4 is focused on psychological horror, in a vein similar to Silent Hill 2. A large part of it deals with Gordon's subconscious, which is manifested in his dreams. For the most part, you play as Gordon as he explores the locations in his nightmares and tries to uncover their significance and origin, though you also return to Gordon's apartment between dreams, where you can save the game and conduct research on items you find in the dreams. The structure is pretty much similar to Silent Hill 4 or Fatal Frame 3, and the real world and the dream world connect in subtle ways.

Download

Experience the horror for yourself in the 1 hour playable demo: http://rpgmaker.net/games/4108/downloads/

I think your overdoing it a little with this horror series, i played the first 2 and that was kinda enough for me, but it's still good to see people with motivation, so good luck!

I want to play a demo or something... 

Hi everyone!

@crow5derlock: To each his own. This series is special to me. And this game isn't really a continuation anyway; it's essentially a whole new game. The first three One Night games have a wikipedia article, so someone enjoyed them enough to warrant a sequel.

@Amycha19: I generally don't release demos for One Night games. They are only about an hour long anyway, so a demo would be too short. However, the full version will be released soonish.

And here I am almost a year later contradicting myself...

Well, it's been a long time coming, but the first publicly available build of One Night 4 is now available to download. This build represents all of the work done on the game's mechanics and engine so far. It's both a Proof of Concept to demonstrate the mechanics that the game will use (and the completed version will likely expand upon and refine what's seen in this build) and a preview of the game's story and atmosphere.

This build contains the entirety of the game's first location (the School World) and, depending on how long it takes you to complete puzzles (and, of course, how many times you die), should provide anywhere between 40 minutes to an hour of gameplay. For best results, please play in the dark, alone and with a set of headphones. This is meant to be a horror game, after all.

By the way, I'd like to thank all of the people who contributed to One Night 4's Indiegogo campaign, which enabled this release to be possible. This build is intended to show them what their donations have been spent on and allow them to play a small part of the project that they're supporting. For gameplay instructions and a (bare bones) credit list, check out the readme included with the game and -- most importantly -- enjoy and remember to pass on feedback!

Notice:

Hi everyone. There was a small problem with the demo I released yesterday. I didn't realise that the tileset I'm using in the game uses one of the RTP's tilesets and I didn't include this in the download. Basically, the game still runs, but all indoor tiles are missing, which means no walls, floors or tables.

I've re-uploaded the download with the missing tileset. Please download if you are experiencing problems. My apologies -- I was going nuts trying to figure out why people were reporting impassibility errors that I didn't encounter during testing.